RIVER OF TEARS

BRENDAN's POV

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PAGE WELFARE is right next to me.

I take my time to carefully analyze her completely with my mid-shut eyes.

Her but cheeks are touching the wooden floor, while her arms and hands softly rest on top of her long legs, which are tensely curved and making contact with her unsteady chest that keeps inhaling and exhaling pretty fast her back rubbing on straps of the stairs.

The first thing I notice though is her face, a sad expression plastered on her features, a few silenced tears making their way to her rosy cheeks, the characteristic white wide smile of hers I'm used to seeing is long gone.

She doesn't seem to be the Page I have known for three long years. And that alone is enough to set the alarm for me, making me become more aware of the space surrounding me.

Something is not right.

"Brendan?"

She recognizes me immediately, her light blue –almost grey eyes bulging right through me. Her tone is low, purposely questioning, curious and thoughtful, giving me the idea she is scared of something.

She definitely seems like she wasn't expecting to see someone, let alone me, but the lack of the usual confidence on her voice and of some sort of reflexing response in attempting to hide her wept eyes or tremulous lips, showed that she wasn't going to bulk away either.

"Page hey-are you... okay?" I ask dumbly, regretting it afterwards.

Of course she is not okay, prick, just fucking look at her.

The fact that a girl who is known for being one of Highland's pretty faces, always with some colour on her face, smiling, laughing extensively, cracking polite jokes to youngsters, low-key flirting and talking all the time, was, at the present time, curved in a ball crying her eyes out, in a corner of the high corridor in a friend's house, confused the hell out of me, especially now.

I have never seen Page cry before.

What was happening was such an incredibly strange, unpredictable scenario, it took me, literally, by surprise. The only thing I could do was stop on my tracks and watch the scene in front of me.

She also addressed my stupid question dumbly, shrugging her shoulders like she doesn't know what to respond, her eyes quietly mirroring on me from distance, her head slowly lifting from her lap.

But perhaps my words triggered her, it was enough to break her out of her trance.

In a blink of an eye, she used her hands to clean her nose and wrap her own blonde hair around to form a ponytail, forcing herself to stand up.

"Yeah, of course, I'm fine"

She said almost automatically, even though her trembling voice framed her, the blue eyes of hers were trying to ignore my stare, focusing on the dark grey dress she was wearing.

"I don't think that's true" I moth, stepping towards her, but soon as I come closer to Page, she suddenly feels claustrophobic and turns her body around.

"Jesus, Brendan I said I'm great!"

She screams anxiously, right before she lowers her hand to catch her purse which was on the floor.

I don't give her the time to bullshit with me though. In a reflex, my right hand moves itself to strongly grab her arm, making her face me again,

"You were crying. What's wrong?"

She seems to focus her attention not in what I just said but on my hand, I immediately get the urge she might feel uncomfortable from my touch so I retrieve it.

Silence follows, but I maintain my question. She looks up at me with glowing eyes that are worried, begging me to stop questioning her.

I might be a total loser, I even fucking might be a coward, but I'm not the one to ignore something's right when it clearly isn't, and I don't care if it's none of my business.

"Look-"

"Rhys, you're drunk. So am I. There are times when me being drunk is me jumping and breaking things and sometimes I become emotionally overloaded but that's it." She quickly adds, not taking her eyes off of me.

She's good with dodging the bullet away but I don't believe her for one second.  She feels unsteady and tense, so I think about letting this issue go, at least for the rest of the night.

"I might be drunk but I'm not going to forget what I just saw Page, I'm not stupid" I told her.

"You mean- whatever you think you saw." She rolled her eyes, adding a tiny smirk to her lips.

"You know what? I need to get some fresh air. You should get back to the boys too." Her eyes trailed once more on my face, before she displayed her notorious smile, and headed down the stairs, half covering her face.

I stopped for a minute.

If this has something to with Travis, I think, for the first time, I won't keep my mouth shut over his shit.

I'm done protecting his ass.

Colber had my full respect because he was the one who was there for me from the very start, not everyone else.

He had helped me in ways I couldn't ever put into words, but he had earned my trust and friendship from the moment he looked at me in the eyes and told me that he was part of a group where people had flaws, unresolved trouble, deep personal shit to deal with but, most of all, he belonged there because people supported each other through thick and thin, no matter the consequences, no judgment, no pressure, just mutual back up.

How could I say no to that?  Support was everything I had looked for my entire life and there was he, openly offering it to me, without taking his time to know me better or to question if I was indeed trustworthy.

I am never going to forget his genuine generous gesture towards me, he became my best friend, my brother, thanks to Colber I have a better life that I had before, still, what happened inside the group after I joined him was, of all things, the worst Colber could have expected.

Why would a sixteen-year-old guy, a brand new student who had just entered in eleventh grade, with no parents, money or fancy cars, join the group?

For all of them, it made absolutely no sense, some got suspicious, skeptical and apprehensive. And, Travis, well, he was the one who hated it the most – my incoming was felt by him as being the arrival of someone who was about to dethrone him as the best left wing Highland's Bricklane football team ever had to replace him by a new, less experienced and not much of a flair player attacker.

I got that, I was intimidating him and that fucked him up.

But for once in my whole idiotic life I had finally been appreciated for being a part of something good. So I let it slide, telling Colber I wanted to join him on the pitch.

Travis switched for the right wing though I don't think he still enjoyed much what had happened. We never got to properly talk about the shit that went through between us, on the other hand, I wouldn't buy him if we ever got to that

– he chose the easiest way to despise me all along, so that wasn't something I was trying to emend. He wasn't the only one who abominated me, but, in my defense, at the time I was more focused on other things.

My point is, we obviously disliked each other.

He didn't fuck with me because he was jealous of my position and I didn't fuck with him because he only saw me as his rival.

Yet, considering the fact that Colber had always spoken to me about counting on each other, I never opened my mouth to tell Travis' secrets to anyone, not even the worst ones.

I know he has a soft spot for Page since middle school, for whatever reason.

However, he is the kind of guy who doesn't know how to deal with that stuff, much like myself in that matter, ironically, aside from the fact that I don't get laid with girls who want more than just that - sex – as he does.

Walker doesn't give a shit if he breaks their hearts or not, I believe he is just trying to find an excuse to purposely hurt Page, to keep her far away from him but also close to him at the same time, if that makes any sense.

The thing is, sometimes he loses his mind and does even worse shit- serious dangerous, naughty shit.

Whatever his reasons are, he can't go on like this.

Although my mind keeps reprocessing my thoughts, my body moves itself to the bathroom in front of Colber's bedroom.

"Bro, are you there?" I ask, checking that the door is locked.

I got no response.

It's probably someone who's stoned and throwing up.

Fuck, man, where are you?

I checked my phone but I had no messages. He must be in his bedroom.

That's the one spot Colber wouldn't let anyone enter, not even me. He considered it to be his "solo place to chill and to think", everyone would be pretty impressed if they knew how many sick football ideas and over the moan tactics he would formulate inside those four walls, he has really a big brain-besides, he's the best footballer I know, I mean, ever.

I take some steps before standing next to his closed door.

"Colbe, you there? We're waiting for you man." I say, but, again, I get no answer back.

This is so fucking weird. Knowing Colber, he would be socializing with everybody by now, besides, it's been almost an hour since he texted me, which is odd, he wouldn't message me for me to be in his house as soon as possible in his house, and then him being gone for half an hour.

I bet he's here and fucking with me.

"Hey man, I know you're there" I call him, cracking a tiny laugh. My hand touches the door only to find it surprisingly unlocked.

"C'mon Colbe" I push my strength against the door in order for it to open and reveal my best friend.

My eyebrows knock together as soon as my sight reveals Colber inside his bed. At this point, I think I overdosed on whiskey because what I'm seeing isn't making any sense.

Inside the room, the lights are turned off, so the only clarity that's enabling me to see is coming from the corridor. As my hand moves to turn the light on, I am enveloped by a rotten type of smell I can't quite classify.

"What the fuck is-" I try to say but my voice is cut off once I get a look at the enlighten room.

No. No.

What?

I don't.. understand.

No. Colber?

No. No. It can't be.

"C-Colber?" The sound of my voice is strangulating me, my body is frozen, my mind is racing.

"No. I'm sure I'm imagining things, fuck I am going wild. I-I'm drugged that's it... I.. I didn't take pills today- I, what?-I" I stutter.

"P-Please... Colber, no, don't do this to me"

I glance at him I'm afraid to walk any further. He's in his bed, alone and steady. His eyes are wide open, just like his mouth. There's blood everywhere – on his hair, face, neck, clothes, on his bed, on the floor...

A shiver runs through me as soon as I scream at the top of my lungs

"HELP! PLEASE HELP!"

"FUCK, SOMEONE CALL 911! CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE, PLEASE!"

" FUCK FUCK FUCK! HELP, IT'S HIM! IT'S COLBER, PLEASE!"

My heart is racing, though I'm rock solid.

Seconds pass, I sense bodies passing through me, and a bunch of screams covering my ears. I can't believe my eyes.

I must be having hallucinations.

I can't figure out what happens next, I have stopped in time. I'm only able to feel one thing,

-       the tears that fall from my eyes to my cheeks.

The first tears I've ever let go.

The first time I'm actually crying.

The one time my heart is being ripped out of my chest.

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To be Continued

Please Don't forget to vote and to comment🖤 BTW thank you for the 700 reads!

Hi yall! Sorry I had to do this... I'm sad too :( I love Brendan but after this I think he's about to lose his mind... losing your best friend like that is heartbreaking... Besides that, what did you think about this chapter?

Do you have any guess on suspects so far? I tell you one thing, the details are VERY important ;)

Any grammar mistake feel free to point out!

Love,